Richard Panek is most recently the author of 365体育投注 Trouble with Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet, published in July 2019 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. His previous book,?365体育投注 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, received?the Science Communication Award from the?American Institute of Physics.?He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Antarctic Artists & Writers grant from the National Science Foundation, and a Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His own books have been translated into sixteen languages, while his collaboration with?Temple Grandin,?365体育投注 Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum, was?a?New York Times?best-seller and the recipient of the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Nonfiction Book of 2013.?He also co-wrote the giant-format 3D museum movie?ROBOTS, a National Geographic production. He has been a monthly columnist for?Natural History?magazine and a regular contributor to?365体育投注 New York Times.
Education
MFA in Fiction, University of Iowa
BS in Journalism, Northwestern University
Areas of Expertise
- Fiction
- Creative Nonfiction
Personal Statement
When an editor approached me about writing a history of the telescope, I immediately declined. I didn’t have a science background; I’d never written about science. I didn’t even like science. 365体育投注n the editor said, “Think of it as an essay,” and I haven’t looked back.
What changed my mind was the realization that as a writer, I should be able to write about any topic, however seemingly daunting. And that lesson is at the heart of what I try to teach students of Creative Nonfiction: the element of narrative. Facts are facts, but the tools of fiction—characters, conflict, dialogue, action, setting—can transform useful information into compelling tales. My educational and professional background is in both fields—journalism and fiction—and I’ve found that by combining my experience in conducting research with my experience in constructing narratives, I can make even a deeply esoteric subject accessible to a general readership.
For instance: In my most recent book,?365体育投注 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality, I tell the behind-the-scenes story of the discovery that won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics; the narrative includes such novelistic elements as bitter rivalries and fruitful collaborations, blind alleys and eureka moments. 365体育投注 science involves the accelerating expansion of the universe, but the human element—the scientists—is what drives the narrative.
My two previous books also cover the history and philosophy of science for non-specialist readers,?Seeing and Believing: How the Telescope Opened Our Eyes and Minds to the Heavens?(Viking, 1998), and?365体育投注 Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud and the Search for Hidden Universes?(Viking, 2004). So does the book I wrote with Temple Grandin,?365体育投注 Autistic Brain: Thinking Along the Spectrum, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). ?As will my forthcoming book:?365体育投注 Trouble With Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet?(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019).
Throughout this surprising (to me) evolution in my writing, I have always asked myself two questions that I also encourage students to ask of themselves:
- Have I explained this topic in such a way that I would have understood it before I started my research?
- Have I found a way to illuminate the human drama that is at the heart of every narrative, whether fact or fiction?
If the answers are yes, then maybe I am — we are — heading in the right direction.
Richard.Panek@goddard.edu
Affiliation MFA Creative Writing
